PROFESSIONAL TRAINING & RESEARCH COMMISSION

Cariad Astles is a puppetry trainer, teacher, researcher, performer and director. She has run puppetry training workshops across the world, including in China, Singapore, Spain, Denmark, France, Germany, the UK, Chile and Australia and has numerous online courses in different aspects of puppetry. She is currently vice-president of International UNIMA and has been the president of the Research Commission since 2016. She speaks, writes and understands English, French and Spanish to a high level and also speaks Catalan, Italian, Portuguese and Swedish. Over the last four years, the Research Commission has set up or collaborated on approximately 16 different symposia on women in puppetry, applied puppetry, directing, autobiography, cultural migration within puppetry and other related topics and has collaborated on the publication of several special journal issues and books. Cariad teaches regularly at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and at Exeter University, Grenoble University and is a core member of Irenia, an international group of artists and educators based in Catalonia, where she leads puppetry workshops in peace education, intercultural communication and human rights. She has published widely on puppetry. She is trained in nonviolent communication. She is based in Sweden and the UK.